Arthur had been coming to this particular barber shop for decades. There were newer shops along the street; the sort with fancy seats and free coffee and thumping music and pretty people with trimmers and scissors and combs. But Arthur liked this one. The building was a familiar spot in a world that kept changing. When Gerry or Tom – whoever happened to be running the shop that day – set about their work with their typical, quiet but professional style, Arthur would gaze out of the window and try to see what was different from the last time he’d been here. A shop closed down, a new shop, a new budding relationship for that lovely young woman who did regular surveys of passers-by and whose name he could only guess at – Lisa, he imagined. In the summer months the old sash windows would be open because the barber shop could get warm, and Arthur would soak in the noise of traffic outside the pedestrianised zone and the chatter of hundreds of couples and families and people on their phones passing below. Arthur liked this barber shop a lot for all those reasons, but mostly because it was the only place that could keep his wild pubes in check.
Apologies to anyone who got this short story sent to them as a subscriber email. I’ve been testing a way to have certain categories of posts not be sent to subscribers so as not to annoy them, but this was sent before I’d figured out the right code for the hooks and filters.